Beetles bear brunt of forest slump

Lack of recent headlines about kauri dieback doesn't mean the bad news is over.

- VERONIKA MEDUNA

News about kauri dieback disease has gone quiet lately but sadly not because the issue is resolved. Various efforts, including the long-running rähui in the Waitakere Ranges, are slowing the spread of the microscopic root-rotting pathogen, but the disease has now killed thousands of trees. It remains incurable and ultimately deadly.

A walk through a kauri forest is a humbling experience. They are among the world's longest-lived trees and once covered much of the top of the North Island, centuries before people arrived. They grow and die slowly. Now researchers are finding that as the trees perish, forest beetles are disappearing too.